Strangers

spinning wheel, and the wounded man was the spindle onto which this power wound itself. But Brendan was not merely a single machine producing one meager thread; he felt, within himself, a thousand-million wheels flashing round and round so fast they whistled and hissed as they spewed out a thousand-million insubstantial and invisible - yet binding, strongly binding - filaments.
        He was a loom, as well, for somehow he used the countless threads of godlike power to weave a cloth of health. Unlike his experiences with Emmy Halbourg and Winton Tolk, during which he had been unaware of the cures he was performing, Brendan was acutely aware of knitting up the rent tissues of this gunshot stranger. He could almost hear the clatter of the pumping treadles, the thumping of the batten beating the threads into place, the reeds forcing the wet to the web, the heddles guiding the warp, the shuttle working, working, working.
        Not only had he begun to acquire a conscious appreciation of his power, but he sensed that the magical force he harbored was increasing, that he was ten times the healer he had been when he saved Winton-and would be twice as good tomorrow. Indeed, beneath him, the stranger's eyes swam into focus within seconds, blinked. And when Brendan lifted his hands from the wound, he was rewarded with a sight that took his breath away and gladdened his heart: The bleeding had already stopped. He was even more amazed to see the bullet rise out of the man's body as if being expelled by some inner pressure; it squeezed backwards from the entrance wound and popped free of the flesh with a sucking sound. Even as the spent slug, wet and dully gleaming, rolled out onto the victim's belly, the ragged hole began to close as if Brendan were not watching the healing of a real wound but a time-lapse film of the healing.
        He quickly touched the lesser wound in the man's shoulder. At once he felt the second bullet, not as deeply buried as the first, nudging out of the torn flesh. It pushed and squirmed against his palm.
        A thrill of triumph raced through Brendan. He had an urge to throw his head back and laugh into the chaotic fury of the storm, into the night, for the ultimate chaos and darkness of death had been defeated.
        The victim's eyes cleared entirely, and he looked up at Brendan with bewilderment at first, then with recognition, then with horror. "Stefan," he said. "Father Wycazik."
        That familiar and beloved name, coming from the lips of this complete stranger, startled Brendan and filled him with inexplicable fear for his rector and mentor. "What? What about Father Wycazik?"
        "He must need your help more than I do. Quickly!"
        For an instant, Brendan did not understand what the man was telling him. Then with sudden dread he realized that the driver of the machine-gunned Jeep must be his rector. But that wasn't possible. How had he gotten here? When? Why?
        For what possible purpose would he have come?
        "Quickly," the stranger repeated.
        Brendan leaped up, whirled toward the onlooking soldier and Colonel Falkirk, pushed between them, slipped in the snow, stumbled against the front bumper of the Jeep. Holding on to the vehicle with one hand, he clambered as fast as he could around the front to the driver's door on the other side. It wouldn't open. Seemed to be locked. Or damaged by gunfire. He wrenched in panic, but it would not budge. He pulled harder. Still nothing. Then he willed it open, and it came with a grinding and squealing of broken bits of metal, fell wide on twisted hinges. A body, slumped against the steering wheel, began to tip slowly out through the open door.
        Brendan grabbed Father Wycazik, dragged him out of the driver's seat, and laid him on the cold blanket of snow. This side of the Jeep was touched by less light than the other. In spite of the darkness, he saw his rector's eyes, and as if his tortured voice were coming from a great distance, Brendan heard himself say, "Dear God, no. Oh, no." The shepherd of St. Bette's had flat, sightless, unmoving eyes that gazed at nothing in this world but at something far beyond the veil. "Please, no." Brendan saw, too, the furrow of a bullet that had dug its way along the skull, from the corner of the right eye to a spot just past the ear. That was not a mortal wound, but the other was: a devastating hole in the base of the throat, gaping horribly, filled with shattered